Hot and Saucy

Author: Cat

12Aug

We drove over to Tampa tonight for some BBQ at Alex’s Southern Style BBQ. Let me preface this review by saying that it was a very hot August evening and there was a definite lack of air conditioning in the restaurant. Couple that with the overwhelming BBQ smokiness in the air and you end up with an overall uncomfortableness that definitely had an effect on how we felt about the food. After a while, the air felt so thick and pungent that my eyes started to water.

Our initial reaction when we walked in the door was that the BBQ smokiness in the air was a good sign; that the food was going to have that deep rich smoked flavor to it. We wanted to try a little bit of everything, so we got two of the two meat meals, one with chicken and pork, the other with beef and ribs.

Unfortunately, there was so much BBQ sauce on everything that we couldn’t really taste the meat. It was a sweet and tangy sauce and a little went a long way. The meats were all tender, but neither of us could make a good judgement on the flavor. What’s funny is that so many of the other reviews we’d read said that they usually didn’t put a lot of sauce on the plate. As for the sides, the onion rings and okra were both crispy and tasty, the cole slaw was good, but Loren didn’t like his greens. He said it had a flavor that just wasn’t what he expected.

Total bill was $22 and the smell of BBQ smoke lingered on our clothes for hours. I began to understand why people were coming in and getting take out instead of eating in the restaurant.